Hasta La Gadget!

While Verizon and HTC have said that the HTC One isn’t hitting Big Red anytime soon, that doesn’t mean that the new device won’t land on Verizon at some point in the future. Recent evidence suggests that the One may be itching closer and closer to Verizon stores, thanks to a discounted DROID DNA, which customers can grab for free for a “limited time.”

It’s worthy to point out that this isn’t just any normal smartphone with a discount. The DROID DNA is HTC’s flagship device on Verizon, and such a discount like this either means that the phone is selling poorly (which we highly doubt) or Verizon is making room for a new HTC flagship — a.k.a. the HTC One.

Then again, the sale isn’t lasting that long. The deal ends tomorrow, meaning that most customers will miss it if they blink, so it’s certainly not a sale that Verizon is counting on to lower inventory, but it’s possible that they could just be raising awareness for the new-ish phone, since the DNA is HTC’s latest phone on Verizon, and it’s already quite old.

The HTC One isn’t an exclusive phone by any means, as it’s already available on AT&T and T-Mobile, and HTC usually puts most of their phones on Verizon’s network, so we’re a little surprised not to see the One in Big Red’s lineup, but it could only be a matter of time before that eventually happens, unless HTC has other plans.

However, Verizon is hosting their own little even this week at CTIA, which could be the moment where Verizon will announce the HTC One. Then again, HTC has said that if Verizon and HTC announce One availability, it’ll be a “big deal,” and an event at a relatively small tech conference like CTIA doesn’t really sound like the “big deal” that the two companies were talking about, but we’ll see what the companies have brewing and report back with our findings.

Verizon HTC One speculation returns as DROID DNA offer arrives is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Oh HTC. You’ve produced one of the finest Android smartphones ever (seriously, just look at all these reviews), but you’ve faced more than your share of challenges when it came to actually pumping your top-tier One smartphone. As it happens, that may all soon change.

FocusTaiwan reported earlier today that HTC is preparing to pump out more of its wonderful Ones in short order — Jack Tong, the company’s North Asia president, noted that this month’s production capacity for the flagship device is twice that of April, and that surge will only continue into June.

Sounds pretty yawn-worthy, right? Normally I would spend too much time dwelling on the finer points of production capacity, but here’s a device that was launched to widespread praise by an underdog smartphone company some people have written off, and HTC has basically been getting screwed thanks to part shortages for the One’s Ultrapixel camera and a brief injunction due to the HDR microphone it uses. It’s like a perfect storm of headaches for a company that really, really doesn’t need it — one look at its Q1 financials and it’s clear that HTC needed this launch to go as smoothly as possible. It didn’t.

For what it’s worth, HTC hasn’t disclosed how many Ones it’s shipped since it launched earlier this year. Meanwhile, rival Samsung’s Galaxy S4 has become the Korean electronics giant’s fastest moving smartphone — Samsung shipped 6 million units in just over two weeks, and it hopes to cross the 10 million unit threshold by the end of this month. Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that Google’s Hugo Barra showed off a version of the S4 at the company’s I/O developer conference that runs a version of Android that’s unfettered by the software bloat that many a reviewer took umbrage at. Company representatives were careful not to call it a Nexus — even though it seems to harbor many of the advantages inherent to the Nexus line like a clean Android build and access to frequent software updates.

As I noted towards the end of my HTC One review, the wireless industry isn’t a meritocracy — the well-executed device doesn’t always wind up saving the day. Hopefully now that some of these production woes have been ironed out we’ll see HTC live to fight another day, but that’s still far from a given.

After experiencing component shortages that caused delays, the HTC One seems to be getting back on course. Component supply issues seem to be waning, and HTC is now ready to shift production into high gear. It’s said that HTC One production will double this month compared to last month, and the output should keep growing month-to-month.

According to Focus Taiwan, president of HTC North Asia Jack Tong, said that manufacturing volume will double this month compared to April and will continue to grow into next month in order to meet “strong demand” for the company’s flagship handset, which was officially released late last month, but ended up getting on shelves before the Samsung Galaxy S 4 in some markets.

The company had a fairly negative first quarter, with revenue down to $1.45 billion, but HTC is hoping that a boost in production along with sales of the HTC One will see the company turn itself around in time to report its Q2 earnings. After all, the company saw almost a 50% drop in sales compared to the same quarter last year.

Then again, HTC can’t completely rely on the One to keep the company afloat. They have other recently-released devices out on the market, including the HTC First “Facebook phone,” which actually isn’t doing so hot on the selling floor. It’s exclusive carrier, AT&T, recently dropped the subsidy down to just $0.99 from $99 after just a month of being on the market, which is something we don’t see very often and it usually means that things are going south for the device.

The HTC One is available on AT&T and T-Mobile starting at $199, with AT&T having exclusivity for the 64GB version at $299. The phone has a 4.7-inch display with a resolution of 1920×1080, which offers you a full HD display with a super-high pixel density. Under the hood is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 clocked at 1,7GHz with 2GB of RAM to keep things humming along. Check out our full review to learn more about the device.

VIA: ZDNet

HTC One production to double this month is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

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